Najmie bin Maliki I'm a Malaysian, Indonesia is our neighbour. I often watch or read stories of the Jews under the Nazis, or the bourgeoisie during Red Terror, or the Tutsis during Rwandan genocide. It often felt distant or surreal. I cannot imagine the fear, or the horrible concoction of emotions they go through at that moment. Or what is the story from the killers' perspective.But this story is so close to me. Indonesians speak the same mother tongue as me. I went there a few times. It's chilling.Rather than telling the story from the victims' perspective - which might draw sympathy from audience or even disgust towards the perpetrators - telling the story from the killers' perspective brings the storytelling to a whole different level. Shock value. They didn't show any remorse or trauma of participating in the mass killings. They give euphemisms to the act of killings like 'ending their lives' or 'switching them off' (matikan).I'm going to drop some spoilers here, but I won't consider it as spoilers anyway, this is a real historical event, you can read it on the internet or books. The main character, a former executioner during that communist purge (where an estimated one to two million were murdered) told that he once chopped off a head with a machete, and the rolling head had his eyes open and stared blankly. That gave him nightmares, not the fact that he chopped someone's head off, but because he didn't close the eyes and that stare gave him nightmares.The director (who was born in the USA, had British citizenship, based in Denmark but spoke Indonesian) went there to do a reenactment movie of the 1965 mass murders. These former executioners went to villages and asked villagers to participate in acting as victims. Some kids actually genuinely cried during those reenactment scenes. Most of the villages they went were actually descendants of the murdered victims.The director also had clips of governor, ministers and even the vice president openly talking about empowering gangsters to continue exterminate communists. There was one scene where there's a conversation degrading a woman who had to perform sex acts to multiple men, then the same people prayed to God.Descendants of the murdered were denied education, rights, and probably still are. While the murderers look like they don't mind doing it again, and not difficult too, as they are still in power. It shows in the credits, it was full of anonymous.

Jesper Rehmeier Joshua Oppenheimers "The Act of Killing" is an experience unlike anything I have ever witnessed before. Its a tour de force of emotions, guilt, evil and redemption. It grabs your heart and punches you in the stomach in a way no other documentary has ever done.Oppenheimer goes to Indonesia to interview some of the leaders of the death squads that were responsible for millions of deaths during the purge of 1965. He find them as aging men with powerful positions in the society they help to shape with violence and brutality that makes you question the very essence of mans capabilities. We meet Anwar Congo. Film lover, fashionista and loving grandpa. And responsible for killing more than 1000 people by himself during the purge. Anwar is viewed as a hero by the people of his community and he has never been brought to consider that what he did was murder. Oppenheimer challenge Anwar Congo and some of friends to recreate some of their killings to make a movie and during the filming, Anwar transforms. He begins to realize that what he did MIGHT have been wrong. Its a heartwarming transformation and a human being is born. The documentary challenges the conventions of the genre and has become the new benchmark for how you can tell a story of such magnitude and complications. You can't afford to miss it!

Jackson Booth-Millard I remembering hearing the title of this documentary during awards season, and it was a recent edition to the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die book, and with it being five stars out of five by critics I was hoping for something really good. Basically the film focuses on the Indonesian killings of 1965–66, and challenges the former Indonesian death-squad leaders to reenact their mass-killings in whichever cinematic genres they wish. Anwar Congo, aka the Executioner, and his friends were mass murderers, promoted to small- time gangsters at the time when the government of Indonesia was overthrown by the military in 1965, they helped the army kill more than one million alleged communists, ethnic Chinese and intellectuals in less than a year, Congo himself killed hundreds of people. They reenact their killings in the styles of classic Hollywood crime scenarios, film noir gangster scenes, western and even musical numbers, it is only towards the end that elderly Congo truly realises the viciousness of his past and retches over the though of killing so many innocent people. I will admit firstly that I did not pay the fullest attention to the entire film, I even trailed or dozed off at some point, but I definitely got the gist, where perpetrators to a military coup, who never faced justice, made to recreate their real-life atrocities, and in the process revealing their twisted souls, it is a fascinating enough documentary. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Documentary, Features, and it won the BAFTA for Best Documentary, and it was nominated for Best Film not in the English Language. Good, in my opinion!

Mario64 "The Act of Killing" is one of those few documentaries that you can watch once (and most who see it will prefer to watch only once) and never, ever forget. It is the best, most powerful, and one of the most unique documentaries I've seen this decade, and maybe in the 21st century.In Indonesia in 1964 & 65 occurred what can only be called a genocide of presumed communist communities, caused by death squads which were at least tacitly backed by the West. Nearly fifty years later a number of those who participated in massacres of unthinkable horror talk about what they did. It's truly unsettling what they describe, in the form of beatings, strangulations, be-headings, rape and other forms of sick barbarities. But what's arguably more disturbing is the casual way these abhorrent crimes are talked about, and the lack of repulsion or remorse by many about what occurred, partially due to the fact there's little risk anyone will be punished for it, ever. Millions in the country still celebrate the military style rule of the time, they serve in elected office, and have propaganda talk shows to congratulate themselves (though many I'm sure also have little idea about this dark chapter in their country's history).The filmmakers here did something pretty brilliant, which probably produced more insight and history than any number of hours of interviews would have: they ask those who participated to reenact violent scenes of what happened during those purges. And these former thugs (they often proudly refer to themselves as "gangsters") are only too happy to oblige, putting in surprising effort to accomplish the cinematics. The scenes they act out, with some "Hollywood" stylization, range from darkly comical in a few instances, to absolutely grotesque and very hard to watch. Seeing them act out scenes they presumably partook in is chilling, but it's also where we see some humanity come out: in a few scenes the emotion of certain "actors" is overwhelming. As cold as these people might seem to the pain they've caused, no one deals with the situation in exactly the same way. And it all comes to an ending scene which will be etched in my mind probably as long as I'm alive. "The Act of Killing," tough watch as it is, needs to be seen, both for its important history on an under-reported atrocity of the 20th century, and for what it says about us as a people when we lose our soul and convince ourselves the worst acts are justified.I find it both interesting and a little pointless that they've now released a director's cut version that's a half hour longer. I have to think that version must be either for film students, historians, or for masochists. I won't sugarcoat it, this is one of the most grueling, uncomfortable movie experiences I've ever had in a long time. I'm glad I've had it, and I'm of no two minds in calling this film a masterpiece, but enduring an extended version is not something I plan on partaking anytime soon.